Verborrea

Freud on religion and unhappiness

Religion restricts this play of choice and adaptation, since it imposses equally on everyone its own path to the acquisition of happiness and protection from suffering. Its technique consist in depressing the value of life and distorting the picture of the real world in a delusional manner-- which presuposes an intimidation of the intelligence. At this price, by forcibly fixing them in a state of psychical infantilism, and by drawing them into a mass-delusion, religion succeeds in sparing many people an individual neurosis. There are, as we have said, many paths which may lead to such happiness as is attainable by men, but there is none which does so for certain. Even religion cannot keep its promise. If the believer finally sees himself obliged to speak of God's 'inescrutable decrees', he is admitting that all that is left to him as a last possible consolation and sourse of pleasure in his suffering is an unconditional submission.

- From Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents.

On the origin of religious feeling

- From Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and its discontents"

Tiempo

En vías de superación de los primeros traumas, creo que tomé la decisión correcta.

Edward Bernay's ideas on manipulation in mass culture

In Propaganda (1928), his most important book, Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Fragment taken from Edward Bernay's entry in Wikipedia.

Edward Bernay's ideas on manipulation which in war time take the form of propaganda were proven to work also in times of peace through the manipulation of unconcious desires, linking emotions to products to make people buy things they didn't need.

- Video fragment from "The Century of the Self" Part 1. Happiness Machines.

Edward Bernay's wikipedia entry.
Edward Bernay's book: Propaganda.

Nahuatlismo

Imagínense que ahora nos diera la vena nacionalista en México y quisiéramos obligar a todos a hablar en náhuatl. Por ejemplo, vas a la tiendita a comprar una Coca Cola, preguntas "cuando vale esto" y te dicen makuili pesos. Pides que te hablen en español y te miran mal, y te dicen que quieren toua la mexikayotl.

No se la meim.

El papel de "nación guardiana" (el sustituto del "mundo libre") que ha asumido EE.UU., es algo que tenemos presente en los medios diariamente, como dice Huntington, "...occidente define sus intereses como de la , expresión que se ha convertido en el eufemismo colectivo que se utiliza para dar legitimidad universal a medidas que responden a los intereses de los EEUU y otras potencias occidentales..." (Hungtinton, 1997: 218).

- Reseña de Mary Kaldor. Las nuevas guerras. Violencia organizada en la era global: (2001). Barcelona: Tusquets. 242 págs. (versión original: New and Old Wars: Organized Vionece in a Global Era, Cambridge: Polity, 1999) escrita por Mª Luz Hernández-Palomo Peña.

La catedral de Don Justo

En Mejorada del Campo, a las afueras de Madrid, un señorcito, Don Justo construye una catedral basándose en antiguos planos de construcción italianos. Con materiales reciclados y donaciones...